Now what?

I'm standing at a career crossroads. And I don't know which way to go.

Beta readers have my manuscript, I've decided I cannot write a query letter if my life depended on it (and it kind of does, doesn't it?) and I have two WIPs sitting on my computer desktop. Unfinished and beckoning me.

What to do? I could bear down and rewrite my query for the umpteenth time. Or I could fire up one of those WIPs and get back to writing. Or I could do what I did today -- spend the morning reading and the afternoon watching baseball on television.

Here's some background:

One unfinished novel is the political one I started when I finished the first draft of The Devil You Don't Know. I was exhausted and purposefully began writing a completely different kind of novel, one with a more dispassionate -- almost remote -- voice. It's more plot-driven with less darkness (although it has some) and features a Main Character I would actually like to continue to explore. I envision it as the first in a series of political novels featuring Ian Cooper, the protag in this one.

The main reason I started it last fall was that I felt I had bitten off more than I could chew with DEVIL, which is big, complex, dark and features multiple points of view. I wrote DEVIL from the heart, exploring and plumbing the very depths of my life, my experiences and my fears. It was hard to write and yet cathartic in an odd kind of way.

The last thing I wanted to do was turn around and dive back into a similar book. The very thought of it sent shivers down my spine. So I invented Ian Cooper, sketched out a story one morning in a notebook, spent the next week doing bio sketches of all the characters, and started writing.

It was great fun. I was writing in a style very different from the one I used to write DEVIL. It's not exactly light-hearted, but it's certainly more lively, less deadly serious.

But at some point, about 14,000 words into it, I got some feedback on DEVIL from a couple of early alpha readers. They loved it and wanted more of the same. Then the book editor who went through DEVIL also liked the story, its depth and its complexity. She also mentioned some kind of a continuation.

I balked. I did not want to write another book like DEVIL. And I certainly didn't want to write a damned sequel, since sequels usually suck and anyway, why start a sequel to a book that might not ever get published?

But I started to wonder if perhaps I am meant to write the kind of books that wear me out, that exhaust me in every way possible. Maybe I'm not meant to write light-hearted, plot-driven series books.

So I ditched the political novel back in January. I spent several days working up a story, sketching out characters, etc. And then it occurred to me what I was doing.

I was writing the sequel to The Devil You Don't Know!

Sure, I think I've found an original way to write a sequel, in case the first book never sells. See, the new one starts several months earlier than its prequel, and eventually dovetails with that plot about midway through the novel. It has a whole new cast of characters, although the old characters appear at the midpoint. It's even set in a different place -- Exeter, N.H.

Of course, it ends up in the same place as DEVIL. And it's designed to wrap up the story completely. And if I craft it right, it could stand on its own.

But now that I'm waiting for beta reports to come in -- and dealing with a big-time case of the nervous crazies in the process -- I'm wondering what to do. Should I go with my first instinct and finish the politcal novel? Or dive into the bigger sequel and hope for the best?

What would you do?